Transactions of the Royal Society of South Africa

This publication that is hosted on SA ePublications is only available to sub-Saharan countries.

The Transactions of the Royal Society of South Africa is the descendant of the Transactions of the South African Philosophical Society, a journal that was published from 1878 by the South African Philosophical Society, a Cape Town group founded in 1877 with the objective of promoting original research about South Africa. Since 1908 - with the inception of the Royal Society of South Africa as the successor of the Philosophical Society - the impressive Transactions of the Royal Society of South Africa has appeared regularly, showcasing the best significant original research from the sub-continent.

After one hundred years of continuous publication, this journal can be mined as a history of science in South Africa. A glance at any contents page of the Transactions of the Royal Society of South Africa will provide evidence of the manner in which diverse topics have coalesced to provide a scientific perspective on the region and added to the body of knowledge about it. Over decades the journal has demonstrated the Royal Society of South Africa's contribution to vibrant intellectual debate and original research among its membership and beyond.

The record is one of innovative engagement with the knowledge industry of South Africa and shows an impressive array of subjects. All scientific disciplines have been well represented in the Transactions, among them astronomy, archaeology, botany, ethnology, meteorology and climatology, mineralogy and petrology, physics and engineering, geology, palaeontology, irrigation, mathematics, oceanography, physiology and zoology. The particular strength of the Royal Society of South Africa lies in its multi- and interdisciplinary orientation and the Transactions of the Royal Society of South Africa advance such studies by preferring to publish synthetic work in order to promote comparison and synthesis of the information held by specialist workers.The Transactions of the Royal Society of South Africa is internationally accredited. It is devoted to articles based on original research. All material submitted is evaluated by the editorial board and other referees.

Latest Articles

The Johannesburg Gas Works in Cottesloe no longer produces
energy. But in its passive state, it stands as one of the city’s
most evocative post-industrial sites. While most of the city’s
abandoned mining infrastructure has been literally crushed
to extract residual gold waste, the GasWorks, with its lingering
chemistry of tar, ammonia, oxides and acid has resisted redevelopment
since its decommissioning in 1992. The crafted
industrial sheds, tanks and machinery and the landscape
between them are therefore a uniquely untouched cluster of
forms and spaces that constitute what de Solà-Morales Rubio
calls a terrain vague (1995) of note.

In this history of six women, Andrew Bank tells the story of
South African anthropology as a house that Winifred Tucker
Hoernlé built. She is the mother figure of a school and the chapters
about the others – Monica Hunter Wilson, Ellen Kaumheimer
Hellman, Audrey Richards, Hilda Beeman Kuper and
Eileen Jenson Krige – all begin with epigraphs acknowledging
their debt to her. Four of these women came to maturity in
South African universities as Hoernlé’s ‘intellectual daughters’,
while Richards, who spent only three years in South Africa, was
the heir to Hoernlé’s maternal role. In this narrative of a matrilineage,
male anthropologists – Bronislaw Malinowski, A.R.
Radcliffe-Brown, Isaac Schapera, Godfrey Wilson and Max
Gluckman – figure as ancillary characters. (King Sobhuza II of
Swaziland also puts in a cameo appearance.) By telling a story
that centres on these women, Bank makes a new argument
about South African anthropology; that it was exceptionally
committed to collaboration and fieldwork. Showing us their
personal commitment, professional effort and political convictions,
he contends that they bequeathed to the field a humanist
legacy, as yet unrecognized.

As was succinctly expressed by Edward O. Wilson – the biologist
who introduced the word biodiversity so firmly into
our repertoire, the world’s ant expert, the Darwin of our
time – ‘I have been a happy man in a terrible century’. He
was speaking of the 20th century, with its two World Wars
and a Cold War, and a human population explosion from 2
to 6 billion from 1930 to 1999 with its massive impact on everything
around us.

It is now widely accepted that alien, invasive species pose one
of the greatest risks globally to the ecological, economic and
cultural integrity of our natural landscapes. Yet assessing the
impact of invasive species, predicting their spread and understanding
the associated ecological and evolutionary processes
remain a huge research challenge. This timely and authoritative
new book provides a detailed road map of where we
are to date on meeting these challenges and the most productive
strategies likely to move us forward.

The microstructure of graphite and its oxidation have been individually investigated at length. When any
catalytic impurities are removed from graphite, oxidative attack takes place preferentially from the
exposed edges, or active sites of graphite crystallites. This provides valuable insights regarding the
underlying crystallography and fundamental structure of graphite which are not immediately evident
from a raw topographical examination using, for example, microscopy. Using new techniques, such as
field emission guns and sensitive detectors, modern scanning electron microscopes are capable of
operating down to a few hundred volts. When surface features and effects are being considered this is
absolutely critical as the low voltages imply low sample penetration of the electrons, thus the true
surface morphology of the material can be resolved. In combination, these methods provide a valuable
technique for investigating the microstructures found in graphite. The approach has been applied to
natural graphite but is even more relevant to synthetic graphite and therefore nuclear materials, which
have an exceedingly complex microstructure. The revealed structural qualities can be related to the
manufacturing processes in order to gain additional insights into the material and uncover potential
options for improving the properties.

Southern African late Quaternary research has developed rapidly during recent decades, with an increase
in the range of proxies used, the inclusion of new field sites, and increased international collaboration and
skills transfer. This has enabled recent meta-studies into the synoptic drivers of palaeoenvironmental
shifts across the region, and of spatial variability in climatic and environmental changes. Expanded
research has also highlighted uncertainties in the understanding of southern African
palaeoenvironments, and the relationships with Northern Hemisphere analogues, encouraging on-going
critical debate within the discipline. Given current concerns of climate change impacts on the natural
environment, the spread of invasives, increased fire frequency, and anthropogenic influences on the
natural environment, palaeoenvironmental data and inferences are increasingly being utilised outside
of the palaeoenvironmental discipline, providing a valuable inter-disciplinary platform for global
change science in the region. Relative to the size, landscape and climatic heterogeneity and resultant
biome variability across southern Africa, the network of palaeoenvironmental study sites remains
sparse, and arguably insufficient to resolve key debates. This paper critically reviews these spatial gaps
in palaeoenvironmental knowledge, with a particular emphasis on the shortfalls of the current network
of study sites and palaeoenvironmental records in resolving debates concerning latitudinal shifts of the
Westerlies, conditions during the last glacial maximum and contemporaneous Northern and Southern
Hemisphere climatic events. Southern African applications of palaeoenvironmental science in exploring
ecological trait shifts, fire influences and anthropogenic impacts are briefly discussed, to facilitate the
future identification of key sites, proxies, debates and applications in ongoing regional Quaternary work.